What yworks does

yWorks GmbH is a Tübingen, Germany-based software company founded in 2000 as a spin-off from the University of Tübingen, specializing in graph visualization and diagramming technology. The company's flagship product is the yFiles SDK, a programmatic library used by software developers and enterprise IT teams to embed advanced graph rendering, automated layout, and interactive diagram capabilities into custom applications. yWorks also operates yEd, a free desktop graph editor, and yEd Live, a browser-based variant with ChatGPT integration, both serving as top-of-funnel tools that reach over 1 million users across more than 60 countries. Named enterprise customers include Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Bosch, Scania, Deutsche Telekom, and JetBrains.

The yFiles SDK is available across six platform targets (HTML/JavaScript/TypeScript, Java Swing, JavaFX, .NET WinForms, WPF, and Avalonia), reflecting twenty-five years of accumulated investment in cross-platform layout algorithms and rendering technology. The surrounding product portfolio includes an App Generator for no-code diagram applications, a Neo4j Explorer for graph-database visualization, Graphity for Confluence, a library of React components for org charts, supply chain diagrams, process mining, and company ownership visualizations, yFiles Graphs for Jupyter and Streamlit, VSDX export, and a 2024-launched MCP server for AI-agent access. yWorks is privately held, bootstrapped with no external funding, and employs 30+ people, over 20 of whom are developers. Revenue mechanics rely on per-seat SDK licensing to enterprise development teams, with free-tier editors (yEd, yEd Live) used to drive developer awareness and conversion into paid SDK deployments.

Name

yworks

Legal name

yWorks GmbH

Website

https://yworks.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2000

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

yWorks GmbH is a Tübingen-based, bootstrapped developer-tools vendor that builds the yFiles SDK for embedding graph visualization and diagramming into enterprise applications across web, Java, and .NET platforms. It serves over 1 million users in 60+ countries, with enterprise customers including Microsoft, Google, Bosch, and JetBrains.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Graph Visualization SDKs

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511), Other Computer Related Services (541519)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Developer Tooling & SDK Platforms (BPAMAOAD)

akta.pro secondary industry

Developer Portals, SDKs & Documentation Platforms (BPAMADAG)

Keywords

• Graph visualization SDK
• Diagramming software libraries
• Network graph analysis
• Automatic graph layout
• White-label visualization tools

Headquarters

HQ city

Tübingen

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. yFiles SDK Licenses: Commercial software licenses for the yFiles SDK family. License types depend on the number of developers using the library and in how many applications yFiles will be used. Perpetual licensing with no royalty fees. Domain keys required for yFiles for HTML deployments (single domain or unrestricted domains).
2. Annual Maintenance and Support Subscription: Optional annual service that offers technical product support and free product upgrades to all versions published during the subscription period. Does not auto-renew; customers are informed upfront about expiring subscriptions.
3. Professional Services: Consultancy services including implementation support, code reviews, coding, and migration assistance. Workshops and training sessions are also offered. Professional support connects developers directly with core yFiles library developers.
4. Add-on Products: Paid add-ons such as VSDX Export for exporting diagrams to Microsoft Visio format. These are separate companion products that add functionality to the core yFiles SDK.
5. Free Tools (Lead Generation): Free tools including yEd desktop application, yEd Live browser-based editor, yFiles Graphs for Jupyter, and yFiles Graphs for Streamlit. These attract developers to the ecosystem and demonstrate yFiles capabilities, driving commercial license adoption.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels7 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

yWorks develops and licenses the yFiles SDK family, a commercial software library for visualizing, editing, and analyzing graphs and network diagrams. yFiles is offered for five major platforms — HTML/JavaScript/TypeScript, Java (Swing), JavaFX, .NET (WinForms), and WPF — with an Early Access Program for Avalonia, providing proprietary automatic layout algorithms, graph analysis, and white-label, royalty-free perpetual licensing. Complementing the SDK are free end-user diagramming applications (yEd, yEd Live), add-on React components, and professional consulting, training, and support services.

Product overview

yWorks is a diagramming and graph visualization company offering a portfolio of products centered around the yFiles SDK family. The core product is yFiles, an industry-leading software library for visualizing, editing, and analyzing graphs available for five major platforms: HTML/JavaScript (yFiles for HTML), Java (Swing), JavaFX, and .NET (yFiles.NET and yFiles WPF). yFiles for Avalonia provides cross-platform .NET support. Complementing the SDK are end-user diagramming applications: yEd (free desktop editor), yEd Live (free browser-based editor with ChatGPT AI support), and Graphity for Confluence (enterprise team collaboration). Add-on React components provide ready-to-use functionality for organization charts, supply chain, process mining, and company ownership visualization. Additional tools include VSDX Export for Visio compatibility, App Generator for no-code app creation, yFiles Graphs for Jupyter/Streamlit for Python integration, yFiles mcp-server for AI agent access, Neo4j Explorer, Cytoscape layout algorithms, yGuard bytecode obfuscator, yDoc UML generator, and svg2pdf.js library.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• yFiles for HTML Commercial JavaScript/TypeScript SDK for web-based graph visualization, editing, and analysis. Renders via SVG, WebGL 1/2, and HTML5 Canvas and integrates with React, Angular, Vue.js, Svelte, and other UI frameworks. Distributed as an npm module (including a private registry for licensees).
• yFiles for Java (Swing) Commercial Java SDK for graph visualization using the Swing toolkit. Provides a modernized API covering Java 8 features, full automatic layout and analysis algorithms, and headless-environment support for Java 8 or higher.
• yFiles for JavaFX Commercial Java SDK for graph visualization on JavaFX. Supports Scene Builder, FXML, and CSS styling, and integrates with Eclipse/SWT applications. Requires Java 8 or higher.
• yFiles .NET (WinForms) Commercial .NET SDK for graph visualization on Windows Forms. Supports .NET 6.0+ and .NET Framework 4.6.2+, ships as a private NuGet package, includes XAML visualization templates, and supports poster printing.
• yFiles WPF Commercial .NET SDK for graph visualization on WPF. Supports .NET 6.0+ and .NET Framework 4.6.2+, native WPF data binding, the use of any WPF control for graph elements, and XPS printing.
• yFiles for Avalonia (Early Access Program) Cross-platform .NET SDK for the Avalonia framework, in Early Access Program. Provides the full yFiles SDK feature set for cross-platform .NET development targeting Windows, macOS, and Linux.
• yFiles for HTML 3.1 (major release) Major 2025 release of the yFiles for HTML web SDK adding seamless edge bundling, integrated heatmaps, and improved WebGL scaling for clearer and more performant visualizations at any zoom level.
• VSDX Export Add-on Paid add-on for yFiles for HTML that exports diagrams to Microsoft Visio VSDX format with full graphical fidelity and editability. Supports loading VSSX stencil files as templates, exporting annotations and metadata, multiple diagrams per file, and modifying existing VSDX files (compatible with Visio 2013 and later).
• App Generator No-code/low-code tool for rapidly scaffolding yFiles-powered diagram and graph visualization apps from user data. Users interactively configure data sources, choose UI framework and programming language, and generate a starter application in minutes.
• yFiles mcp-server MCP (Model Context Protocol) server included with the yFiles Dev Suite that gives AI coding assistants structured access to yFiles documentation, APIs, and demo code. Compatible with Junie, Claude Code, Cline, Cursor, Copilot, Codex, Gemini CLI, Devin, Warp, goose, and JetBrains AI.
• yEd (desktop diagram editor) Free desktop graph editor application for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Provides intuitive creation and editing of high-quality diagrams with automatic arrangement at the click of a button and supports hierarchical, organic, orthogonal, and circular layouts.
• yEd Live (browser-based diagram editor) Free browser-based diagram editor requiring no installation. Creates and edits flowcharts, network diagrams, organizational charts, and more directly in the browser, with ChatGPT integration for natural-language diagram creation and editing.
• Graphity for Confluence Enterprise graph editor for Atlassian Confluence that supports multi-user, real-time collaborative diagram editing, user rights management, and team-oriented diagramming.
• yFiles React Components Suite of ready-to-use React components for specific use cases including organization charts, supply chains, process mining, and company ownership visualization. Distributed as npm packages under the @yworks scope.
• yFiles React Company Ownership Component React component (npm package @yworks/react-yfiles-company-ownership) for visualizing company ownership structures, shareholder mapping, and equity relationships, with sophisticated layout, interactive tooltips, customizable rendering, and level-of-detail rendering for large graphs.
• yFiles Layout Algorithms for Cytoscape Free Cytoscape app that provides yFiles automatic layout algorithms for arranging Cytoscape networks for clearer and more concise visualization.
• yFiles Graphs for Jupyter Free extension for JupyterLab and Jupyter Notebook that visualizes Python graph structures with yFiles layout algorithms. Imports from NetworkX, igraph, PyGraphviz, Neo4j, Graph-tool, and Pandas DataFrames; supports geospatial mapping with Leaflet.
• yFiles Graphs for Streamlit Free Streamlit component for interactive graph and diagram visualizations inside Streamlit apps. Imports from NetworkX, igraph, PyGraphviz, Neo4j, Pandas DataFrames, Graph-tool, and custom node/edge arrays; supports automatic layouts, neighborhood exploration, search, and Leaflet-based geospatial mapping.
• Neo4j Explorer Free web application for connecting to Neo4j graph databases and exploring data interactively and visually with yFiles visualization.
• Professional Services (Consulting, Workshops, Code Reviews, Migration) Paid consultancy services from yWorks covering implementation support, code reviews, coding, and migration assistance, as well as workshops and training sessions. Direct support connects developers with the core yFiles library developers.
• Maintenance and Support Subscription Optional annual service offering technical product support and free upgrades to all versions published during the subscription period. Does not auto-renew; customers are informed upfront about expiring subscriptions.

Quantifiable outcome

• More than 1 million users and customers in over 60 countries
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration22 records

AI capability7 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• University of TübingenfoundationalStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2000yWorks was founded as a spin-off of the University of Tübingen in 2000 when the first commercial customers wanted a license for yFiles. yFiles started as a university project at the University of Tübingen in the late 1990s. The company maintains close ties with the university for research and development.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Cambridge Intelligence: Direct competitor offering graph visualization SDKs (KeyLines, ReGraph, Graphileon). Targets the same enterprise developer/analyst buyers with similar layout, analysis, and white-label capabilities, making it the closest peer to yFiles.
• Tom Sawyer Software: Long-standing graph visualization and analysis platform vendor (Tom Sawyer Perspectives, Grafo). Competes with yFiles for enterprise graph application development with comparable layout algorithm depth.
• Linkurious: Graph visualization and analytics platform built primarily for Neo4j and other graph databases. Competes with yFiles' Neo4j Explorer and yFiles for HTML Neo4j integrations at the graph-database visualization layer.

Emerging players

• Graphistry: GPU-accelerated graph visualization platform focused on security and fraud analytics. Overlaps with yFiles on graph-for-investigations use cases but differentiates via hosted platform delivery.
• xyflow (React Flow): Open-source React library for building node-based editors and diagrams. Increasingly the default developer choice for React-native graph UIs, competing with yFiles for HTML at the lower-complexity end of the market.
• Sigma.js: Open-source JavaScript graph drawing library focused on rendering large interactive networks. Competes for JavaScript developer attention alongside yFiles for HTML, especially for large-network performance use cases.
• Cytoscape Consortium: Open-source platform for complex network visualization in bioinformatics and life sciences. yWorks even distributes a free Cytoscape layout plugin, illustrating direct overlap in network analysis tooling.

Broad incumbents

• Microsoft Automatic Graph Layout (MSAGL): Microsoft's open-source graph layout engine used inside Visio and other Microsoft products. Competes with yFiles layout algorithms at no cost, bundled within a much broader Microsoft ecosystem.
• draw.io (diagrams.net): Widely deployed free diagramming platform. Overlaps with yEd and yEd Live at the consumer/diagramming layer and competes for the same end-user mindshare for general-purpose diagram creation.

Others

• Neo4j: Graph database vendor whose Bloom visualization tool overlaps with yFiles Neo4j integrations. Not a direct SDK competitor, but a key ecosystem partner and indirect competitor at the graph-database visualization layer.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/yworks
• GitHubgithub.com/yworks
• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/yWorksTube
• Facebookfacebook.com/diagramming
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/yworks-gmbh

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about yworks